The thrilling 11-inning matchup that saw the Los Angeles Dodgers defeat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a total 51M spectators across the United States, Canadian, and Japan territories. Major League Baseball announced this is the highest-rated World Series finale after the 1991 contest between the Minnesota Twins and Braves.
Television Ratings Breakdown
Last Saturday’s epic contest secured over 27 million viewers on Fox Sports channels, Fox Deportes and their streaming platforms. Per ratings data, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It also stands as the top-rated World Series matchup since the 2017 edition Game 7 between the Dodgers and Houston Astros, which drew 29.07M. This marks a sixteen percent increase over the previous finale featuring the Nationals and Astros, which attracted 23.19 million viewers.
In the weekly rankings, the sixth game placed 4th, Game 4 ranked seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in thirteenth place.
International Audience Numbers
In Canada, the game recorded 11.6M viewers on Sportsnet and the French-language TVA Sports channel. This made it the most-watched English program in Canada since the 2010 edition Vancouver Winter Olympics.
In the Japanese market, where the deciding game began at 9 PM in the local time zone, it drew 12 million. This came after the previous Friday’s Game 6 – where World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave up one run in six innings – averaged 13.1M spectators, making it the highest-rated World Series matchup on a sole broadcaster in Japan.
Overall Averages and Trends
The full seven-game series averaged over 15.7 million viewers on the Fox network, a 2% increase from the previous year’s Dodgers-Yankees matchup. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight seasons.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the total American viewership reached 16.1M. The total World Series average in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1M in the Canadian market.
The full playoffs on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million watchers, an 8% increase compared to last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings since 2017.
MLB announced that the Fall Classic was broadcast in over 200 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in 16 various tongues.
